MSSA U-16 div-I Finals

by Chaitany Thakare August 19, 2016

It was a battle between attack and defence in the U-16 div – I MSSA final match between St Stanislaus and Don Bosco A (Matunga), at cooperage ground, Colaba. Having been undefeated throughout the tournament Don Bosco were clear favourites to lift the trophy. However, they needed to get the monkey out of the back after finishing semi-finalist and runner-up in previous two years.
While on the other side St Stanislaus were looking to get their hands on the trophy for the first time in past seven years.
The game started on a very defensive note with none of the teams taking chances in starting exchanges. Don Bosco’s no 9 Aman Mangih was kept quite by St Stanislaus’s centre back Vicky Karkada .

The first chance of the match came from a set piece with St Stanislaus’s defender conceding a free kick from the edge of the penalty box. Don Bosco’s captain Ratin Mehta stepped up to take the free-kick . The Don Bosco’s captain struck it quite well forcing St Stanislaus’s goalkeeper for outstretched save to his left to tip the ball over the crossbar.

However, after dominating much of the 1st half it was St Stanislaus who opened score sheet first due to goalkeeping error by Don Bosco’s. St Stanislaus’s captain Marven Pereira pounced onto loose to open the score sheet for St Stanislaus as his side went off the field with a 1-0 advantage.

After conceding the needless goal in first half, Don Bosco’s side started the second half on very on offensive note pressing very high up in the opposition half. St Stanislaus’s side was on receiving end for much of the second half and when they had  the ball they hardly made any move forward perhaps a tactic which eventually cost them the match as their defence failed to respond to constant pressure and conceded late goal and went to loose the match during the penalty shoot-outs resultantly Don Bosco came up as the crowned champions of U 16 division for the season 2016-17.

Talking about the victory Don Bosco’s coach said, “It was a two-year gap since in 2013-14 we lost and in 2014-15 we won in the tiebreaker it was a penalty and it was inside the box . So this year the boys themselves decided to gift me victory and it was certainly a pleasurable moment.”

Addressing about the strategy he said, “They were defensive from the start so we went on offensive as our defence was good and it paid off.” talking about the penalties he said ,” I told them to either in or out with their strong foot because we had our bad share of experience against KC college.”

Communicating about the cooperage stadium and his future plan he said ,” Don Bosco has been good with his sporting divisions which enable us to produce such a good teams and talents. On top of that, the atmosphere at the cooperage is great, we also had good support so overall it was a good day for our boys.” After saying this, the proud coach of the victorious team signed off.